Brian Freemanle - Charlie’s Apprentice

Snow hurried through the Beijing suburbs towards the former and now decaying Catholic church the authorities allowed to remain as an empty symbol of supposed religious tolerance, just as Father Robertson was retained as an even emptier symbol. Snow knew Father Robertson would have been terrified if he’d known of his second role, which he conceded was hardly surprising, considering how much the ageing priest had suffered during the five-year imprisonment through the final period of the Cultural Revolution. But Snow often found it difficult to curb his impatience at the old man’s hand-wringing nervousness and constant warnings against offending the authorities.

The Jesuit Curia should never have allowed the Chinese government to use them as it had in allowing Father Robertson to remain, after his release, even though it provided the Order with a presence in a country where it had always been traditionally important for it to be and where Catholicism was still, officially, permitted. Father Robertson was no longer a proper Soldier of Christ, not like Snow knew himself to be: had known from the earliest childhood days in the seminary and would always be, prepared to fight like a soldier and suffer like a soldier if called upon to do so. As Zhang Su Lin had said he was prepared to suffer, after the massacre in Tiananmen Square. Snow often wondered about Zhang: the man had been the best dissident source he’d ever had. The only one, in fact. And he had disappeared with the complete suddenness of his arrival.

Despite the stinging dust and his desire to get into the protection of the church and its attached quarters, Snow halted abruptly short of the intersection, to allow as much room as possible between himself and the approaching nightsoil collectors carrying their brimming buckets of excreta from the non-flushing street stalls: the smell of untreated sewage in the strong wind was even more throat-clogging than the biting grit.

Snow coughed, as much against the memory of Father Robertson’s reaction to Tiananmen as to the stink all around him. The broken man had actually confronted his outrage by quoting the Old Testament – Shall not the Judge of all the World do right? It had been one of the first times Snow had let his contempt show openly, quoting directly back from the Book of Proverbs. Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him. Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit.

Even as he had uttered the words Snow realized he had gone too far – been blatantly insubordinate – but he’d said it and the harm had been done, perhaps forever. Father Robertson had asked for his folly to be explained, and Snow had made the necessary apology and tried to argue the evil of a genocidal regime that had to be swept away. Only to be answered by another quotation, on the futility of fighting might with might, which hadn’t met the point he’d tried to make anyway and which rendered futile the whole dispute between them. As any political discussion between them would always be futile.

Had Father Robertson ever been a proper Jesuit? That was practically a sacrilegious doubt about a man who had served a five-year jail sentence ostensibly for his faith, but privately Snow was frequently unsure. The old man could quote all the catechism and diktats of Ignatius – which was how he faced any dissent, by placating quotation from the Order’s founder or the Bible or whatever tract he considered appropriate – but the man never seemed to have the fervour or commitment of other Jesuits Snow had encountered before his posting to China.

He had to stop himself becoming so irritated by the other man, Snow decided. He was a proper soldier, secularly as well as spiritually: that was all that mattered. If it hadn’t shown the most arrogant conceit, he would have believed himself chosen, to perform a dedicated, committed task.

The smell of body waste lingered in the street as Snow crossed, able when he turned into the side-street to see the sagging shingled roof of the church buildings: their green was already dulled by the grey fall-out from the desert. Snow’s aggravation switched from the man who was considered, by their Order, to be his superior to what he saw as the emptiness of his own position in Beijing. He was only accepted by the Chinese authorities as an instructor of English, not a priest. He went through the charade to justify his residential permission, but he decided, impatiently, that he was not truly performing any proper function, at any proper level. He needed to get out, into the provinces, to meet people hopefully less afraid than the majority seemed to be in the capital, to talk in the Mandarin or any of the three other dialects he spoke about anything they wanted to discuss. It was a suggestion to put to Father Robertson who, annoyingly, had the power of veto over him.

He was grateful to get inside the complex, out of the driving wind. Directly inside the door he shook himself, like a dog discarding water. He remained quietly in the hallway for several moments, waiting for the tightness in his chest to lessen before going into the church misted from disuse with a different, thicker dust. Quite alone in the echoing cavern, in front of an altar denied any ornamentation, not even the statues of adoration, he went through his devotions, praying as he did every day for special guidance in each role he performed.

Before going to Father Robertson, he splashed water from a prepared jug into a matching bowl in what had once been a robing-room, washing the grit from his hands and face.

Father Robertson was at his desk and quite motionless when Snow finally entered, head bowed so deeply over its scattered and dishevelled contents that he might have been asleep. From long experience, Snow knew that he wasn’t. In the early days, Snow had waited politely to be invited to sit, but not any more: he even grated the chair over the bare boards, needlessly to alert the older man that there was someone else in the room.

It was still several minutes before Father Robertson stirred and looked sideways. It was not the Jesuit practice to wear any habit, and certainly not here in Beijing. Father Robertson wore bagged and shapeless trousers and an equally used shirt, open at the neck. His pure white hair was full and long and without any shape: Snow had never been aware of the man combing it, even on the occasions when they’d attended official or government events. The faded blue eyes were watery, in a lined face whitened by the years of sunless imprisonment.

‘I’ve heard the wind.’ The smile was distant, an attitude the man constantly conveyed.

‘It’s the Gobi,’ suggested Snow.

‘Not so soon.’

‘So it won’t last.’ It was still too early for there to be the smell of whisky. That would come later.

‘Where have you been?’

‘An early morning walk.’ Snow had been again to the main railway station. Three weeks earlier he’d witnessed a heavy troop contingent going north, on the Shenyang line. There’d been nothing on any radio broadcast or in any newspaper in Beijing, but then he hadn’t expected there to be.

‘It can’t have been very pleasant.’

‘I’m glad to be back.’

‘Well in time for your school.’

At best the class comprised twenty people, but the attendance was irregular. Snow had wanted the lessons to be given in the church, but Father Robertson had insisted that would be provocative so they were conducted in the church hall. Snow said: ‘I was thinking, while I walked. I would like officially to take leave owing me. To travel around the country a little.’

‘Where?’

Snow was surprised there had not been the instant rejection that had greeted previous suggestions of his moving around the country. He shrugged. ‘Shenyang perhaps. Or south, to Wuhan or Chongqin.’